XPost: uk.politics.misc, uk.people.health, uk.current-events.general   
   From: banana@REMOVE_THIS.borve.demon.co.uk   
      
   In article <1138274743.238487.123350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,   
   eddie_wood@hotmail.com writes   
      
   >banana wrote:   
   >> In article <1138210267.269138.131220@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,   
   >> eddie_wood@hotmail.com writes   
   >>   
   >> >banana wrote:   
   >>   
   >> You have the attitude (and terminology) of a cop   
   >   
   >By saying that the general public are selfish?   
      
   Yes.   
      
   >In general, we are selfish.   
      
   No we aren't.   
      
   >We smoke where we like, we drive too   
   >quickly, we play loud music, we trash a town on Friday night, we drop   
   >litter, we don't say please and thank you, hold the door open.... there   
   >is an endless list of selfish actions.  It is a generalisation, hence   
   >the use of the phrase "general public".   
      
   In your original post you made the general public sound like they didn't   
   include yourself, but...   
      
   If you smoked wherever you liked and trashed towns on a Friday night,   
   you would be a very inconsiderate person, but I think rhetoric may be   
   getting the better of you here.   
      
      
      
   >I go to McDonalds and hence have tried "eating shit".   
      
   :-) Why still go there then?   
      
   It's interesting that no-one has posted to this thread saying 'what's   
   wrong with me using my mobile phone wherever I damn well like?'   
      
   Incidentally, 'general public' is very much a police sort of term. It is   
   deeply snobbish, and basically means 'working class people with no other   
   relevant characteristics other than belonging to a mass'. Not like   
   medics (ooooh!), solicitors, or other 'professional' shysters. And not   
   like those people who can't do anything without having other people   
   under them, or otherwise relating to 'masses' of people. (E.g. managers   
   but various other types too). I am told that in early usage, there was   
   'the public', who were all men, and the 'general public', when men would   
   be allowed to bring their wives. Don't know whether this is accurate   
   though.   
      
   --   
   banana     "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you   
               give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to   
               Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the   
               rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)